Internationally renowned and award-winning chef George Francisco is sharing his talent and wealth of experience with the Coffs Coast’s Bonville International Golf Resort, where he has been a consulting chef since April 2007.
George Francisco is the head chef of Jonah’s Palm Beach, one of only two restaurants on Sydney’s Northern Beaches in 2007 that were awarded a “chef’s hat” by the Sydney Morning Herald’s well-respected Good Food Guide . George is originally from the United States, where he worked in San Francisco’s top restaurants before moving to Sydney in 2001.
In October 2006, George gave the Coffs Coast a taste of things to come with the highly successful 7-course degustation dinner he created as part of the Coffs Coast Food & Wine Festival.
The top chef now spends about 3-5 days at Bonville every month to help plan menus for the resort’s Flooded Gums restaurant and catering division.
“I had such a good time working with the Bonville staff for the Coffs Coast Food and Wine Festival, that I didn’t hesitate accepting the consulting job, which just really seemed like a fun project,” said George Francisco.
“I’ve been having my family holidays in the Scotts Head area for a few years now, and I love the beach up there. The beaches on the Coffs Coast are very special, and the area reminds me of the place in the States where I grew up,” he said.
George loves to cook with the best and freshest local produce, and tries dishes out on guests at the Bonville International Golf Resort to find out what works here, which isn’t necessarily always the same as what would be successful in Sydney.
Listening to George talk about his food, it’s clear that local foodies have something to get excited about.
“I have been able to bring very high-end ingredients to the Bonville menu that are very hot in Sydney. Where else on the Coffs Coast would you be able to sit down and order W.A. Manjimup black truffles?” he said.
Among other gourmet ingredients George has brought in are a wheel of Biemme Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, Joselito Jamon Ibérico ham, torchon de foie gras and Jonah’s own cured caviar.
“I really love my luxury ingredients and although many of them are imported, I only like to use them in conjunction with amazing, in season, fresh, local products. What I really love about the food I have done at Bonville is that it’s more regional, I believe that is what works here.”
For the 2007 Coffs Coast Food & Wine Festival Degustation Dinner, the gifted chef brought the latest thing to hit major Sydney restaurants to Bonville: molecular cuisine.
And since George confesses that he doesn’t actually play golf, his days in Bonville will be well spent – being productive in the kitchen – not teeing off at the award-winning golf course!
For more information on Flooded Gums Restaurant or to book a table, call 6653 4002.
Whale-watching, both from land and from the sea, is a popular activity on the Coffs Coast between June and November each year, when some 8,000 migrating humpback whales make their way past our coast.
Peter Bruce is the owner/operator of Spirit of Coffs Harbour Cruises, one of Coffs Coast’s main whale-watching cruise operators. He captains the Spirit of Coffs Harbour, taking visitors out onto the ocean daily, weather allowing.
“Our main business is whalewatching, but we run dolphin watching cruises between November and May, when there are no whales, and also do private functions and charters,” Peter said.
Peter is originally from Port Stephens, where he worked as a whale-watching cruise operator for some 20 years before moving to the Coffs Coast five years ago.
“I was ready for a change of pace, and I thought Coffs Harbour was pretty laid back,” Peter said of his decision to move here. “It is very beautiful and still part of the New South Wales coast, it just seemed like the ideal place to get away from the hustle and bustle of it all.”
Peter’s workday starts with an early-morning visit up to Beacon Hill above Coffs Harbour’s Jetty area to do a visual check of the weather and the sea conditions, before going down to his office at the Marina. He then usually fields calls from people checking if the cruise is going ahead and making bookings.
The whale-watching and dolphin-watching cruises leave Coffs Harbour at 9.30am every morning, coming back around noon. On weekends and during school holidays, he takes the Spirit out for another cruise at 1pm.
“I just love the freedom of my job, being out on the ocean, and meeting lots of different people,” said Peter. “I reckon I’ve got the best working environment of all, and it never gets boring – every time we go out there it’s different.”
Everyone who’s gone on the whale-watching cruise with Peter can attest to the fact that he obviously loves what he does for a living and has a great time trying to spot a pod of whales, often cracking jokes over the PA system to keep his guests amused.
When those whales are spotted, everyone immediately whips out their photo and video cameras, while the excited ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ and cries of ‘look over there’ don’t die down again until the whales have returned to the depths of the seas or it’s time for the Spirit of Coffs Harbour to return to the Marina.
And it’s virtually guaranteed that everyone on the boat, including Peter himself, is eager to go out there again.
To book your cruise, call Spirit of Coffs Harbour Cruises on 6650 0155.
Sara is the daughter of Susan and David Massey, who have been running Coramba-based Mountain Ash Pottery & Gallery since 1991.
As a young teenager, Sara started displaying her own artistic talent and became interested in her parents’ pottery business. She started painting for the pottery business when she was just 14, and slowly moved into handcrafting clay emus – just one of the company’s line of clay wildlife animals.
Sara started working at Mountain Ash Pottery full-time after finishing her HSC at John Paul College in 2000 with an art major. There was never any doubt in her mind that she would join her parents’ business, and she thoroughly enjoys every minute of it. “It’s in my blood,” she says. “I love this job and I wouldn’t mind doing this for the rest of my life.”
Mountain Ash Pottery & Gallery specialises in hand-thrown and painted pottery, unique domestic ware, exclusive Crystalline pottery, quality wheel-thrown water purifiers, and clay wildlife animals, which is Sara’s specialty.
Sara spends her days moulding and hand-carving the clay sculptures of Australian wildlife, such as possums, wombats, frogs, emus, geckos, tawny frogmouths and sugar gliders.
“We create a new animal every year, and we now have 15 different animals in our wildlife range,” explains Sara. “The possum was Mountain Ash’s very first decorative animal, and still is our most popular one.”
It takes Sara four days to finish a run of 8 possums. She moulds five separate pieces of clay for each animal, then hand-carves them and joins the pieces together one by one. No two animals ever end up the same, and Sara loves giving each animal its own individual personality.
These handmade clay animals, which come in a wide range of sizes and varieties, cost between $20 and $145.
In her own time, Sara creates original clay nude plaques, which are displayed at Mountain Ash Pottery & Gallery. In January 2006, the young artist was honoured to be invited to exhibit her work in the awards of excellence in Grafton.
Sara’s mother Susan, who has a Diploma in Fine Art, handmakes all the company’s pottery and also handpaints the pieces, while her dad David, who has a Bachelor of Science, formulates glazes and fires the kilns.
As one of the few potteries in Australia, Mountain Ash Potteries also creates Crystalline glazed pottery, which is a labour-intensive and challenging technique producing the hardest possible glaze with stunning and absolutely unique crystal-like effects.
Mountain Ash Pottery & Gallery is located on Coramba Road, Coramba, 15 minutes west of Coffs Harbour, and is open Wednesday to Sunday from 9am to 5pm, and every day during school holidays.
If you appreciate art, you’ll want to find out more about the artist who started a new art movement called Aboriginal Op Art Surrealism. Just plan a trip to Bowraville so you can marvel at the unique paintings in this new style that have been selling like hot cakes lately.
The artist’s name to remember is Les Murdoch. His paintings are a fusion of indigenous dot painting and highly complex Op Art illusions with unique surreal qualities.
Born in Bowraville in 1957, Les Murdoch is an Aboriginal contemporary artist who began painting 10 years ago. Completely self-taught, Mr Murdoch has developed his own style, which is now being recognised as the start of a new movement of art: Aboriginal Op Art Surrealism.
“There is nothing else like it in this world,” said Darren Green, curator of the Bowraville Art Gallery, where Les Murdoch’s work is on exclusive display. Asked to try and describe the artist’s complex and unique style, Mr Green called it “three-dimensional optical illusions with surrealistic twists.” The style is a first not only in Australia, but in the world.
Inspired by nature and its many faces, Les Murdoch delights in creating hidden layers of illusions that deceptively catch the viewer by surprise when revealed. His uncanny ability to blend colours together in complex compositions results in images that virtually jump off the walls, grabbing the audience’s attention.
Apart from being captivating, the works have also proven to be popular and in high demand. “Ever since I started managing Les and showing his paintings at the gallery about a year ago, he has enjoyed great success,” Mr Green said. “We have already had two sellout exhibitions, with Les’s paintings fetching prices ranging from $3000 to $7500.”
“I believe that Les will continue to experience these sorts of successes in the coming years and that his works will fetch higher prices as demand for his work continues.”
So if you want to see the most exciting Aboriginal art to emerge in Australia in the modern era, this is a must-see experience. There are 16 works of Les Murdoch on exhibition at Bowraville Art Gallery at any one time, with a new one replacing one that has been sold at a rate of about one per month.
For further information, contact Darren Green on (02) 6564 8907.
